Clause Pattern: Subject – Verb – Object – Complement (SVOC)

Understanding the construction and use of the subject – verb – object - complement clause pattern

This pattern consists of a subject, a monotransitive verb, a noun phrase and a complement clause.

The complement clause may be a that-clause, a wh-clause, an infinitive clause, or an ing-clause.

Animals show us that there are many places to make a home. (Wishart 2020)
In some states you are asked to notify the public health unit that you’ve tested positive. (Doddridge 2022)
Hoaxes similar to disinformation, are created to persuade people that things that are unsupported by facts are true. (Alsmadi and O’Brien 2021)
Remind yourself that you’re not the first person to procrastinate, and you won’t be the last . (Sirois 2022)
Nevertheless, we cautiously remind ourselves that hominin evolution unfolded over many millions of years. (Peppe, McNulty, and MacLatchy 2023)

To be a good friend for our animals, we should give them the freedom to choose their own activities, and that will show us what they like. (Starling 2021)
So next time you hear someone declare they’re entitled to their opinion, ask them why they think that. (Stokes 2012)
Your eyes tell the brain what it sees and the brain fills in the missing information. (Berg 2019)

For instance, one study asked participants to do either one task or two tasks at the same time. (Vasilev 2019)
Urge your university to divest from fossil fuels, use renewable energy and commit to achieving net zero emissions – soon. (Mocatta and White 2020)
With recent advances in AI made famous by ChatGPT, spammers could have new tools to evade filters, grab people’s attention and convince us to click, buy or give up personal information. (Licato 2023)
The fundamental question is why are we allowing the people with the most privilege and power to convince us to delay saving our planet from climate change. (Maslin 2019)
I always advise politicians to spend time with these innovators and to feed off their energy. (Mulgan 2022)

We can see life evolving all around us. (Graves 2019)
The next time you see an ant crawling up a wall , look closely and you might witness some of these fascinating features at work. (Cassill 2022)
Rather than an explosion, it was a very rapid expansion, the event that started the universe growing bigger and bigger. (Lam-Cassettari 2019)
Have you ever heard someone talking to a baby with a funny voice that sounds almost like they are singing? (Quinn and Mehta 2020)